ABSTRACT
It would appear from the above quotes that qualitative researchers find themselves in a quandary, if not indeed at risk, when practising research. We run the risk of not being confessional enough, to being too confessional and thus not rigorous enough. After coming across the 2008 article by Sampson et al., which squarely lays blame for all this worry on feminist methodologies, I began to wonder: Is qualitative research dangerous? Bad for my health? Bad for my mental well being? And are feminists to blame? Although these questions can be read as playful, I am interested in how as a field, we
have moved from Clifford Geertz noting in 1973 that a major component of ethnography is ‘confessional,’ to a 2002 call in the USA for ‘rigorous scientific research’, to a 2008 indictment against feminist research methods for exponentially raising the stakes because, according to the authors, ‘the particular concern of feminist researchers with reflexivity, with research relationships and with the interests of research participants may make them especially vulnerable to emotional harm’ (p. 920). It is unclear who the ‘them’ in this sentence refers to – perhaps not only the researcher but also the research participants – but the dangers and costs of reflexivity, specifically feminist reflexivity are made clear.
